RIYADH, 25 January 2006 — Hussein Harazey’s situation is one shared by many of the Kingdom’s low-paid migrant workers. After selling his land at home in Bangladesh to pay for his visa, he told Arab News it would take years to buy back the properties that his family relies on.
“I spent SR12,000 for my visa, including a one-way ticket and about SR2,000 for processing. I sold all the land and property my family owns to pay the employment agency’s fees for the work visa,” Harazey said. “Now I earn only SR300 in a month so it may take me six years to repay what I owe.”
Although accommodation, food, transportation and medical care are provided by the company, it seems to these workers that their basic monthly payment of SR300 for an office cleaner and SR350 for a tea boy is very little, considering the differences in living standards between their country of origin and Saudi Arabia.
Harazey said his family of eight relied completely on the land that he sold. He was told by the agency in his home country that he would be offered the opportunity to work overtime, but has so far been offered no overtime. The agency in Bangladesh that processed his visa operates legally there but what they are doing is illegal, he said. He said the agency usually charged both the Saudi firm and the applicant. “That is how they make money,” he explained.
Migrant workers, mostly from India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and the Philippines, were eager to talk to Arab News about how difficult it is to achieve the financial goals that were the only reason they came to Saudi Arabia.
A Bangladeshi cleaner working for a big company in Riyadh said that it took him four years to get into the black, after borrowing SR7,000 from his family to pay for the processing of his visa. Now he works 14 hours a day, including overtime, in order to send something home.
Some workers complain of racial bias regarding salaries.
A Bangladeshi tea boy said that he gets a salary of between SR300 and SR350 while a Filipino doing the same job receives SR600 to SR1,000. “This is obviously bias from the company; though we are doing the same job, we are not getting the same salary,” he said. This low salary was also imposed on Filipino contractual workers, placed by Filipino employment agencies, in Makkah during Ramadan and Haj.
One Filipino worker said that he was happy that he is in Makkah so he can easily perform Umrah and Haj. He told Arab News that his salary was SR300 month plus SR180 in food allowance. In fact, he asked Arab News for financial assistance so he could go home with some small gifts for his family.
A public relations consultant in Riyadh said there were recruitment agencies everywhere in the world that view poor workers as milk cows. They charge hefty fees to Asian workers in desperate need of any opportunity to live and work with the hope that they will be able to send money home. Some agencies are less than scrupulous about checking the age of the workers as well.
The PR consultant said that there was a cleaner at his office who was obviously younger than he should be. “On his passport, he is 22 but judging by his behavior, I imagine he’s only 15 or 16. The poor boy is missing his childhood.”
